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It was my two year anniversary with Marty on Saturday, and his package arrived on Monday, so this post is a little late!  I’m actually in the middle of writing an art dissertation and a drama piece as well as working on my art folio so forgive me!  I’m a busy girl. 

The card this time round was lovely, I actually teared up a little reading it, haha~  I think that’s actually the first time I’ve gotten emotional reading something like that… But the presents were there underneath!  Marty is a packing genius, I swear.

Rilakkuma phone charm!  Actually, this is being used as a charm for the USB I got at Christmas, which is really small.  This has a screen cleaner on the back, too, which is handy because the USB gets covered in fingerprints really easily.

And a Totoro keychain.  It actually came on one of those little ball chains that links together with one of those weird clasps.  Anyway, it broke pretty much as soon as I tried getting it attached to my keys lol… But those things tend to break easily anyway, so I’ve attached him with a round bottomed safety pin instead (which actually looks cuter).

Today was the warmest day of the year so far and I was so eager to get out of school that I almost forgot that I left this little guy (along with my keys!) in the English base.  Mad rush to get him back before the bell rang, haha!

Hi guys.  Following my first incident of theft on tumblr I’ve added a disclaimer to the sidebar.  The location of said disclaimer is shown in the above image.  I’d like to thank a very nice young lady for informing me of said theft and I’ve since messaged the accused regarding the image in question.  I’d like to think this isn’t going to happen again, but realistically I know it will.  So if anyone sees anything here being redistributed, give me a heads up.

EDIT:// Image has since been removed very kindly but it’s been uploaded by a ‘resources’ blog which is where the person found it.  I can’t seem to message the blog owner; the ask box won’t show up for me.  Frustrateeeed.

Otherwise known as clearing out my Gran’s attic.  If there ever was a Z-Day, though, we’d be well prepared considering all the weaponry we found up there.  A trunk containing a pair of binoculars, two daggers and a knife.

As you can guess, all of these are from one of the wars (more likely the second).  The daggers were really rusty, one of which I didn’t even try to open as it was really stiff and I didn’t want to end up slicing off my fingers.  The knife in the bottom right corner is from Taiwan and has a compass on the end of it.  I actually really like the binoculars… They remind me of Wall-E a little bit, haha… Especially in that photo!  All big and googly and cute.  We think the dagger in the top right photo (and also in the bottom left) may have an ivory handle, but we’re not sure.

But there was a better weapon…

An actual legitimate bayonet!  It was surprisingly very light, although as you can see it’s very rusty.  The wooden handle (which is literally just a stick) is immaculate, though. Honestly, when I saw this to begin with I was freaked out because before going over I had said to Marty that if there was a Z-Day I’d just tie the daggers to a stick and poke the zombies from afar.  Creepy!  Haha

I’ve got to say, though, that holding knives and what have you that have been used in wars feels very different to holding a gun that’s used to shoot rabbits… I dunno… There’s this extra weight to them that you can’t feel physically.  I wonder who owned all of these…  I wonder if I’ll ever even find out.  I hope Gran donates these to the museum or something.

My Gran gave me this sketch book last Friday.  I’m not sure how old it is exactly, but it has that old book smell to it and is pretty banged up.  It could be from anywhere between 1924 and 1983, but my strongest guess is somewhere in the 40s considering my grandparents were born in the 30s.  Guesswork over!

I was planning originally on using some of the paper, which is yellow-tinged and soft around the edges, for my AH Art folio work, but it seems I’ve found another use for it, haha.  It’s actually pretty difficult to draw on, because when you erase, the paper has a habit of wearing away, too, haha.  You’ve got to be gentle with this sort of thing, I guess.  So it turns out it may be less ideal for my folio than I thought.

Also, I GOT AN UNCONDITIONAL OFFER FOR ONE OF MY UNIVERSITY CHOICES!  It’s not the university I want to go to, but it’s pretty relieving knowing I have at least one response back.

Oh my god… The first photo of my face since, what, Christmas?  The horror!  Everything here was from Thursday night when there was an open evening at the school. 

I was asked to come in so the parents could see the kind of work we do further up in the school, but they didn’t even come close or look at the work we were doing.  Grr!

This is the piece I’m currently working on.  I think it took me about five hours to do the original pencil drawing due to all of the crosshatching which I insisted on using a ruler for.  The distressed effect (which was supposed to create a wood-like effect - although I haven’t got it quite to that stage yet) is created by pouring and brushing hot wax over the entire thing.  Once it’s dry, you brush a wash of ink over the entire thing and dry it off with a hairdryer.  See all those shavings at the side?  Those are little bits of wax from scraping off more wax with a knife and doing more washes of ink.  You do this over and over again until all or most of the wax is gone and the desired effect is achieved.  The actual texture of the paper once you’ve done this is similar to weathered metal or something, especially in parts where you end up stripping off layers of the paper, too.  It takes ages, but it’s well worth it.

Also today is my two year anniversary with Marty and I’m super giddy and want to roll around in a field of buttercups or kittens or something although the latter would make me seriously ill lol…